Calculating Chart and Album Sales - Discussion and Information

Since we're starting to get discussion of this in the Humanoid thread, I thought I'd move the topic here so we don't get off topic there!

Here's an interesting article!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124760651612341407.html

Definitive answer on Certification of Gold/Platinum etc:

Quote :

Certification Criteria

•Along with minimum sales figures, a number of other criteria accompany each title for certification. The list and table below describe what titles and types of sales can be considered for the awards.
•Each company that requests RIAA certification must be a firm or corporation that has headquarters in the United States and is engaged in the legitimate production and sale of sound recordings.
•Recordings become eligible for certification 30 days after initial street date. Audio and music video titles may be requested for award certification starting 30 days after product is commercially available to consumers.
•Only domestic sales and sales to U.S. military post exchanges may be included. The requesting company must separate PX sales from other accounts on sales sheets. Export sales outside the United States are not included in certification.
•Club sales and club free goods may be included towards certification. Product shipped to retail, mail order, record clubs, TV marketing and other ancillary markets are combined toward certified sales. All shipments to these accounts must be verified by the label.
•Promotional radio and press copies, cut-outs, inventory sell-offs and surplus sales are not included toward certification.
•Catalog product, specifically pre-1972 album releases, are eligible for certification by meeting either the unit shipment or manufacturer's dollar requirement for each award level.

From here:
http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinum.php?content_selector=criteria

Thank you for finding those things, Wampy.

From what it sounded like in the one article with Michael Jackson-- It was more like record and single number weren't tracked well at all-- not just things like that.

So purchases that have to be imported here, don't count towards anything? I dunno... Like... do they have trouble keeping track of these things? Or no desire to?

I'm not an expert...but I'm going to guess that is why there is officially a different (meaning local) label distributing the album in different countries. So that they can at least get sales in that country to count towards the local chart levels and certifications. Because it clearly states that only domestic sales count towards the gold (platinum etc) albums in the US. Now, I don't know what the hell happens if someone from another country buys the album on a US website and has it shipped to a US address. Actually, logically that isn't s domestic sale because the item wasn't purchased with US dollars, so probably still wouldn't count.

The MJ article is fascinating because those numbers have almost totally made it into the legend of his sales totals.

I found it!

I believe it has something to with technicalities. They're not allowed to claim it as a sale in this country because it's destination is another country. Something like that.

veestone wrote:

I found it!

I believe it has something to with technicalities. They're not allowed to claim it as a sale in this country because it's destination is another country. Something like that.

That's what I would think would be the issue.

I guess it's too complicated to make the purchase count for the country it's going to...? -shrug-

Yeah, can't count because it is not paid for using US DOLLARS...which is pretty much all the US cares about.

Well, we'd probably have countries fighting over numbers, then.

This stuff is fascinating!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_charts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200

It's becoming increasingly clear that the numbers are calculated differently for just about everywhere. It's SQUIRELLY!

Perhaps they need a special category for items like this.

Okay, this raises another question. With pre-orders, are the sales calculated as being purchased on the release date or on the date they were pre-ordered? Because the way this sounds, if TH sells 50 albums this week and 50 albums next week, they won't get as much recognition as they would if they sold 100 albums this week and 0 next week.

could question..Id think they would count on the day its paid for?

Apparently all the pre-orders count towars "first day sales" totals...meaning, no matter how much in advance you order it the actual "sale" happens on the day the album/single is released and counts towards the first week's totals. Makes sense. They don't charge you until they ship it!

That's perfect!

This is going to be so amazing.

Schnee wrote:

This is going to be so amazing.